Managing railroad networks often involves coordinating and/or controlling the operations of several trains and their associated rolling stock assets with respect to a number of internal and external variables. For example, railroad managers may coordinate a train's delivery schedule with the delivery schedules of other trains, track maintenance schedules, locomotive maintenance schedules, rail yard capacities, plant and/or mine schedules etc. Railroad managers and train operators may control each train on the network according to a strategy that allows the mission of each train to be completed successfully, on time, and with optimum efficiency. To facilitate this control, communication networks have been implemented that provide managers and operators with large amounts of information from several data sources to allow them to make well-informed operational decisions and strategies.
For example, managers and operators may be provided with location information of trains and assets on the railroad network, performance data of each train asset, maintenance and fault code information, track condition information, track signaling information, scheduling information, and/or other information during operation. Each type of information can be generated by a different data source, and, at times, the same information can be provided by multiple data sources. But when the same information is provided by multiple data sources, discrepancies in the source data may exist that can result in managers and operators being provided with inaccurate information. Further, when certain information is unavailable from all data sources, managers and operators may be required to make decisions without being fully informed of operational circumstances. The same concerns may also exist when information supplied from the data sources is used as inputs for automatic train or asset control systems.
One system for aggregating machine data from multiple inputs is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,676,72 (the ′721 patent) to Piovesan et al., that issued on Mar. 18, 2014. In particular, the ′721 patent describes a system for receiving data from multiple sensors on an offshore oil rig via an aggregator. The aggregator separates and correlates information from the multiple sensors and supplies the aggregated data to a data analysis engine. The data analysis engine looks for undiscovered relationships between streams of the incoming data and compares the data to benchmark data provided by a third party (e.g., nominal manufacturer data). The data analysis engine uses self-organizing maps to create optimized performance parameters, such as thresholds, alarms, and alerts that correspond to the discovered relationships in the data that were not known to the operator of the equipment. Data from the self-organized maps is shown to the user via a dashboard or web-based user interface.
While the system of the ′721 patent may aggregate and correlate data to discover previously unknown relationships, it may not be optimum. In particular, the system of the ′721 patent may be limited to receiving data from sensors located on an oil rig. That is, the system of the ′721 patent may be limited to collecting and analyzing operational data of a rig and its internal equipment. Further, the system of the ′721 patent may be limited to providing a retrospective view of key performance indicators of a drilling operation to its operators for the purpose of assessing the production levels and efficiency of the drilling operation, which may not be applicable to the operation of a railroad network.
The disclosed management system is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems of the prior art.